Wood, particularly untreated wood (including lumber, timber and composites), is subject to damage caused by various environmental factors such as weather, heat, and living organisms, such as fungi or bacteria. Water and fungus may penetrate into the wood leading to decay, rot and a decrease in the strength, form and overall structure and quality of the wood.
Wood treatment methods, requiring various chemicals, have been offered in an effort to prevent or slow the damage caused to wood products by insects or water. One method used to treat wood involves the use of borate. Typically when treating wood products, it is important that the treatment be absorbed throughout the wood for effective protection of the wood. However, typical treatments of wood products with borates make it difficult to further treat the wood product with a preservative composition as treatment with a borate compound may substantially inhibit treatment with a preservative composition and vice versa.
What is needed, therefore, is a better, and more effective wood treatment process to ensure substantially complete penetration of a wood treatment composition and preservative into wood.